I have had my player for a couple of days now. I had it installed yesterday. Let me start off by saying that overall I am very pleased.

This thing is slick. The idea of having ALL of my favorite music at my fingertips is almost mind boggling. So far the player has performed flawlessly in my car. The display is bright, the menu's are pretty self explanatory and easy to navigate - especially once you learn your way around them. The sound is great too.

Okay, now for some details.

The install went well, but instead of two hours it took about four. I suspect that the guys at the shop were playing with my unit some, they sure were impressed with it. I had the amp (Clarion 400.4) and the empeg player installed all at the same time. I am still using my stock speakers ('97 Camry) and actually am pretty pleased with them, once I played with the equalizer on the empeg. I may not buy new ones afterall.

The unit slides easily in and out of the docking sled, and once its removed the gaping hole that exists is not as unsightly as I believed it would be.

Now for a couple of negatives. The wiring on the sled was in pretty good shape, however one wire had worked itself loose from its connection. I showed this to the installer and he fixed it right away. I understand that at the factory the new sleds are being soldered in order that this no longer happens.

My only other complaint is with the emplode software. For some reason I am not able to get large amounts of files loaded to my player in one sitting. In fact I am getting very low numbers.. less than 10 files at a time. The system decides to lock up on me and forces me to reboot the computer before trying again. I have heard one other user with this complaint while most everyone else is getting pretty good performance.

I never did get my ethernet connection to work with the player, but that is because I am an idiot. I am using USB with no problems and the performance is great.

In general, I maintain that this is one slick puppy. If I had to do it again I most certainly would. Overall I spent about $2000US on the player, the amp, and the install. Thats a large amount of money for 'just a car stereo' and if that is how you look at it then yes it is a lot of money. But in reality it is more than that and I feel well justified. Ask yourself how many CD changers will you need to buy in order to have your entire CD collection in your car at your fingertips and see if its not worth it then.

Carl

080000506 12gb-green